BALANCE OF THE FIRST PART OF THE YEAR

Have to admit that I'm very pleased with how things have unravelled so far this season. After deciding to come back to active competition in the senior tournaments last year, I took a hard look on what I needed to improve and have a reasonable chance to winning again. Months of training on and off court, painful hours at the gym and following a diet to loose those extra pounds that hurt my knees started to pay off by the end of 2012.

In December we got a great boost of energy with the winning of the Fall Doubles League at Parc Jarry with my good friend Lloyd Mangahas, and that was such an unexpected achievement as it was the first time we paired as a double tennis team. Let me tell you, that feat raised the bar.

Back to training with Maher Diab and a pre-season workout in Argentina with Federico Melo, Alejandro Fusilier, Marcelo Costa and... Guillermo Vilas, the man himself, put me in a good vibe for what would come.

And the results speak for themselves. On the first stop of the vets tour in Quebec, made semifinals at Boucherville.

An indoor super fast orange carpet that allowed me to prove my tennis and at the same time give a decent farewell to my beloved Puma/Estusa Beckers. Got a couple of wins against lefties (among them Stéphane Chartrand, # 3 in the ranking) and a good match against the top player in the draw, Christian Breton, showing positive signs of the work we'd been doing so far.

Skipped the second tourney in Quebec city, and instead focused on two fronts: The National Indoor East Canada to be held at Côte-de-Liesse Tennis Club on American clay and the Winter Doubles League organized by Tennis Montreal at Parc Jarry.

Now armed with the new Head Prestige MP, I started working again on indoor clay courts. Maher was pushing me to the limit on every session with more success as the weeks went by. Tested my stamina training at good speed and playing a full one-day tournament at the same venue of the National. It went better than expected, winning the Top Gun tournament and finishing strong. Kept playing my doubles partner and good friend, the Moroccan marvel, Oussama Azizi; and also the die-hard Phil Chalabi (top ten player in my age group) from Brazil.

In the meantime, Lloyd and myself started the quest to defend our title in the doubles league. First part of the season was not so good. We lost our first 4 matches in tight games, a very frustrating situation for us. The first win came when we needed it most. Our last match of the first half of the season was defining who was going to keep the place in the group or who was going down to a lower level. After that, something clicked on us and went to storm on 8 consecutive games to claim the title once more. Believe we just dropped 3 sets in that swing.

 

Cannot say how much I love to play with Lloyd, he has the heart of a lion, hence his nickname. After our semifinals win, he gave me an Argentina soccer team jersey to use in the final. I was so tired during our last match, could barely hold my racket, but we made it. Very proud of it. Once again the team delivered on the hard courts at Parc Jarry. It suits our game, it feels like home.

Again this season we got the invaluable help of Shiho Sumitomo (played with her one of the first round robin matches) and Oussama Azizi (also played one of my best doubles matches ever with him on the second part of the season) on our weekly training, both ready to help and practice all kind of drills and disguise their game to the ones we were going to face in competition. Our gratitude to such wonderful friends. They are a big part in the final victory.

Coming back to the Nationals, the balance was exactly what I expected. Won the matches I had to win, lost (regrettably) against the guys I know I'm still behind. Got a couple of good wins against hard hitters with good serves, but lost in the quarters against a train... Alexandre Blaettler (2nd seeded), from Switzerland, my personal favorite player in the tour. He was plain and simple too much for me. I started too conservative, and at no point I was able to damage him. Alex was simply superb along the two sets, not giving me a chance to score... not once. Believe I got probably 12/14 points in the whole match. Only one game point in the whole match. Not much to say. I was disappointed, but have to accept that he plays in a league of its own, as Benjamin Woo told me last year: ''Alex is probably the best player in Canada when he is on fire, no one can beat him''. It will require a lot of extra work for me to be able to challenge him. The bar has raised again.

That loss moved me to the Consolation round, which is exactly a parallel tournament for those who loose up to the quarters on the main draw. The objective is to rank the players final positions as there are only two national contentions that count for the Canadian ranking as per Tennis Canada, one indoor (east or west) during the spring and one outdoor (that changes location every year) during summer time. That was among my expectations, so far so good... what I... what nobody expected was to see the 1st seeded, Olivier Borlee (Canadas # 1 in 35s, top 30 at Open level) also eliminated by the eventual tournament champion Andrew Oxner from Nova Scotia, in the quarters.

Being eliminated in quarters, gives one the advantage to start the consolation at the same stage. Won two matches and got to face Olivier in the final.

This time around I went out there and put as many balls deep and hard as possible. Served strong and attacked at every opportunity. I went down so to speak with my boots on. As a General Custer, knowing that he had all on his side, put some good tennis to give him a run for his money. I missed a couple of chances to get closer in the score, but cannot complain. I was satisfied with the performance. Playing Alex on Thursday in the 40s and a very good doubles match in the 35s with Oussama against multi champions Brojde-Guigère on the Friday before the finals helped me to be ready for that extra speed these top players have. Oussama as usual helped me warm up in the morning of the match and as he knows my game back an forth, gave me some sound advice that added to the strategy discussed with Maher the day before. His cheering during the match felt like a roaring crowd in a Grand Slam. So much appreciated. 

 

So to sum up, played 3 singles tournaments (4 if you count the consolation round in the Nationals as a separate tourney) with 1 win, 1 final, 1 semifinals, and 1 quarters. On the doubles front, 1 win (with Lloyd Managahas, and 2 semifinals (with Oussama Azizi) at Boucherville and at the Nationals.

 

Time to regroup with my coach Maher, keep working for the outdoor season, and see if I can break into the top ten when the new ranking is published in the next week or so.

 

See you in the hunt.

 

Yours,

 

Iron Gaucho